I think Kalesh has put it in a nutshell.
Kedar, the "certain ethics" which you want "Scientific studies" to follow would
be inescapably rooted in the culture of the people proposing the "ethics". It
would necessarily follow that the "certain ethics", while blameless in the
cultural milieu that proposes them, might be unacceptable in other milieux...
On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:32:10 +0530 wrote
>
There should not be a debate on the number of caterpillars one can rear ,it
depends on how much responsibility one can handle.
Dr.Kalesh.S
Thiruvananthapuram
Phone: Mob:9447044498; Res: 0471-2444982
EMAIL: [email protected]
My Blog: http://theskippersofkerala.blogspot.com/
From: Kedar Champhekar
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, 25 November 2011
12:43 PM
Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] Raising caterpillars
I agree with Peter that we should find out why so many caterpillars were
used by that person. But talking about ethics, scientific studies are universal
and should not be affected by any cultural differences so I think that point
quite invalid. Scientific studies should follow certain ethics which can be
varied only if there are some special problems regarding variations in the life
cycles, habitat or the abundance of the butterfly and/or its foodplant across
different species.
Kedar
On 25 November 2011 10:25, Peter Smetacek wrote:
Rohan, while i broadly agree with you, nevertheless there are cases where
a large number of larvae might be required to settle a taxonomic question, to
study infection rates, or something. Don't throw the baby out with the
bathwater. I am afraid i missed the mail asking for the LFP, so why don't you
first ask the person concerned why 35 larvae were taken? Perhaps there was more
to it than one assumes? No point passing one sided judgements.
As far as developing a protocol is concerned, government and sensationalists
have done enough damage to the study of butterflies (see PRASHANTH MOHANRAJ K.
VEENAKUMARI (2011) Butterflies of the Andaman and Nicobar islands: History of
collection and checklist. Zootaxa 3050: 1–36). So I personally woud be chary of
developing or imposing a one-size-fits-all protocol developed on "ethical"
standards, since ethical standards vary widely between cultures, say, what is
horrendous to a vegetarian Brahmin is perfectly fine by a lama or a shaman from
the Himalaya...so whose ethics are you going to apply, especially in a land as
varied as India?
Peter
On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:22:52 +0530 wrote
>
Dear Friends
Few days ago we had an email regarding leaves required for Red Pierrot
caterpillars. Said person collected 35+ caterpillars of Red Peirrot and ran out
of leaves. I still didnt understand the thing of collecting 35 caterpillars.
What is need of collecting so many caterpillars when u didnt have leaves to
feed them. i really feel sad abt the fact that no one on our group has asked
that person to leave the caterpillars on plant and rear only few caterpillars.
Instead all of us shared host plant name with it. I think one or two
caterpillars are sufficient for purpose of documentation. One might argue that
many caterpillars die due to infection, parasites etc. I think all the people
who are interested in documenting life cycles should think twice before
collecting caterpillar from the field. As a community of Butterflyindia we
should take some responsibilty towords conservation of butterflies.�
Regards
Rohan Lovalekar
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